Railway Museums in Asia

Within my chosen geographical area which excludes North America, most of Europe and Japan, the occurrence of genuine railway museums as opposed to the odd preserved steam locomotive or tourist railway is quite rare. Here you will find a list of known links which describe those I either know about through personal experience or through submissions to my website or which have been located by web searches. Some are no more than (steam) locomotive parks, others have barely a steam locomotive to be seen. It will be a useful quick check list for readers making short visits. I have also included a note of known steam tourist operations where appropriate for Africa, Asia and parts of South America, the latter are covered in more detail in the relevant continent page. By and large the links are to pages which are in English, although these days a web-based automatic translation will normally produce something good enough to get started during a visit.... Please email me with additions and corrections to the address at the end, include a sensible and appropriate subject line to help avoid vanishing into the spam filter.

There are certain umbrella organisations whose sites may be helpful, particularly IATM (International Association of Transport and communications Museums) - see http://www.iatm.ws/ - railways are necessarily a small sub group. Others are regional and are noted as appropriate.

Another recommended link - http://www.innvista.com/culture/travel/rail/mindex.htm - as of September 2007 it was last updated in February 2007 and less complete than this site for non-mainstream areas, but necessarily it may be updated, but it will be a good source for the USA, Canada, Australasia and Western Europe.

As always Wikipedia is worth a look but when I checked this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_museums it had far fewer entries in my areas than are on these pages.

This page covers railway museums in the Americas, either scroll down the page or click on a continent for a further menu.

Asia

China (updated 5th October 2011)

There are four major museums. These sites are in Chinese unless otherwise stated:

Beijing - http://www.chinasteam.co.uk/museum.htm/

Shenyang - The museum has led a somewhat peripatetic existence since 2002, moving from Sujiatun (64, Zhonggong North Street, Tiexi District Shenyang) to the Botanical Gardens, to the Tiexi Firest Park and then back to a new site in Sujiatun in late 2009. The following information is from http://www.visitourchina.com/guide/shenyang_steam_locomotive_museum.htm and I accept no responsibility for its accuracy as it has my (stolen) picture of Beijing Railway Museum on it!

Chinese name: 沈阳铁路蒸汽机车陈列馆 (Shenyang Tielu Zhengqijicheng Chenlieguan)
Location: No.8, Shandan Street, Sujiatun District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province
Opening time: 09:00-16:00
Entrance Fee: 50 Yuan
How to get there: take buses No. 324, 327, 333, 335 and get off at the stops of Bei Jiu Lu (北九路) or Liaoning Zhongyi Zhiji Xueyuan (辽宁中医职业技术学院 Liaoning Technological Collage of Traditional Chinese Medicine), then transfer by the ring circuit buses to Shandan Street.

Shanghai  

Kunming -at Kunming Bei Station http://www.chinasteam.co.uk/trains/china262.htm (English, added 1st March 2009)

Hong Kong

See http://www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk/eng/museums/railway.aspx. (Link amended 26th March 2012) 

India

There is a general (unofficial) website which may develop and prove useful http://www.freewebs.com/nrlym/ otherwise check out http://www.irfca.org, especially http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-museum.html (link added 10th October 2011).

There are two major museums:

New Delhi - http://www.nationalrailmuseum.org/new_nrm/index.htm (added 21st March 2010, link not working 29th March 2012)

See also this unofficial sites http://www.irfca.org/gallery/Heritage (added 14th April 2008)

Mysore - see this unofficial site http://www.mysore.net/travel/railwaymuseum.htm and http://www.irfca.org/gallery/Heritage (the latter added 14th April 2008)

Rewari - http://www.rewaristeamloco.com

Minor museums are known to exist too:

Howrah - see http://www.irfca.org/gallery/Heritage

Nagpur - see http://www.irfca.org/gallery/Members/VikasSingh/VikasSinghNagpurNGMuseum and http://railwaysofraj.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

Pune - see http://www.minirailways.com/ and http://minirailways.tripod.com/modelrailway.htm, also http://www.irfca.org/gallery/Heritage/CME-Museum/ (the latter added 14th April 2008)

Regional Rail Museum Perambur (Works), Chennai/ Madras 

Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) - Click here for pictures from Harry Liddle (added 25th January 2012)

Tinsukia (Assam) - a new heritage centre is being established here (6th April 2010), initial exhibits will include a mg Garratt (from Guwahati) and diesel, together with cosmetically restored B 781 from Tipong which had been no more than a hulk for many years. 

The College of Military Engineering (CME) at Khadki (Dapodi), Pune, has a museum with several old railway exhibits including locomotives and other rolling stock.

There are occasional public and private steam specials. The public ones are generally poorly advertised in advance and liable to last minute change of dates! 

Indonesia

There are two railway museums on Java, that at Ambarawa operates occasional private special trains up the rack railway. See the unofficial site (updated 16th November 2011)  

That in Jakarta is 100% static. See the unofficial site. 

A new (railway and mining heritage) museum is being established at Sawahlunto in West Sumatra, until recently a major coal mine. E1060 has been returned from Ambarawa as an operating exhibit (added 30th November 2008)

Israel

See http://www.israrail.org.il/english/general/museum.html.

Japan

Chris Walker tells me that a major railway museum opened near Tokyo on 14th October 2007. The official website http://www.railway-museum.jp/top.html is all in Japanese, of course, but there is clearly an excellent collection here. For English language information check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Museum_%28Saitama%29. A link from this page reports also that the Modern Transportation Musuem in in Osaka also has steam locomotives present, but no details are given, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Transportation_Museum (added 10th January 2009).

A general railway museum's site is http://homepage3.nifty.com/EF57/museum/E-museum2.htm (added 10th December 2011)

Jordan

There are occasional private steam charters.

Malaysia

The North Borneo Railway operated regular steam out of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah but the service was suspended in 2007 while upgrading of the line was carried out. See www.northborneorailway.com.my. The state museum in Kota Kinabalu has steam locomotives exhibited, as does the national museum in Kuala Lumpur.

Mongolia

Colin Young tells me that there is a small open air museum in Ulaan Bataar, which he saw from a passing bus but didn't visit. There are at least 3 steam locomotives here, one of which is a P36. Torsten Schneider has provided more information and some pictures (extra picture, 22nd December 2009). For instructions on access, see Colin Martindale's 2009 report (17th December 2009).

Myanmar

There have been occasional private steam charters, as of December 2008, these were at best suspended or worst finished.

Nepal

There are very occasional private steam charters.

Pakistan

There is a museum near Rawalpindi. See the Pakistan Railways website http://www.pakrail.com but by 27th March 2012 all mention of the museum had been removed!. 

There are occasional private steam charters and semi-public trains up the Khyber Pass from time to time, although as of late-2007 services had been suspended for some time after monsoon damage.

Philippines

Karel Brouwers writes (4th June 2010):

"I was reading the report by Thomas Kautzor on the Philippine railway situation in 2007. I am happy to report that since then efforts have been underway to preserve the equipment here and establish a Philippine National Railroad museum.. This effort has been undertaken by the Railway and Industrial Heritage Society of the Philippines with assistance from the PNR. You might like to take a peek at our new web site, http://rihspi.mithrilcloud.com/. We have restored Buda car # 22 that was mentioned by Mr. Kautzor and it is now on display in the main Station in Tutoban which is no longer unused and is occupied by the Management of the PNR. The other railcar mentioned is Buda 21. We have that one in a member's warehouse in safe keeping. This year the hope of the society is that we will finally get our workshop and some exhibition space for the engines here. Plans are to restore and operate the locomotives again. Yes it is not real working steam but we will be able to recreate period trains as there are several still existing freight wagons..."

South Korea

Several reports on the web describe briefly a railway museum at Seoul Station opened in 1987 (3rd December 2008) but a 2008 blog reports it as being near derelict, I cannot trace any mention of steam locomotives being present here.

There is a further railway museum at Uiwang, it has steam locomotives present. http://www.steamlocomotive.info lists quite a few preserved steam locomotives in the country but does not mention this location although it reports steam locomotives at Bugok, which I believe is the former name of Uiwang station. A restored relic of the Korean war (apparently a 4-8-2) is displayed at Imjingak Park, Paju (added 10th January 2009).

Sri Lanka

There are occasional private steam charters. A new museum in Colombo opened in May 2009 - see http://www.railwaymuseum.lk. Keith Smith was in here in September 2009.

Syria

There are occasional private steam charters, in former years there were weekend steam specials from Damascus up to which may resume at least in part. Thomas Kautzor has forwarded some pictures and information from Ernst Hallas on the works at Cadem which have, in effect, become a museum (24th December 2008). Mark Enderby was here in October 2010 and has provided a list of steam locomotives present (6th November 2010).

Taiwan

There is a museum at Miaoli. There are plans to convert the old steam shed at Changhua into a national railway museum. 

Thailand

There are occasional public steam specials from Bangkok to Ayuthaya, traditionally these occur on 26th March, 12th August, 23rd October and 5th December. Tickets are available some 2-3 weeks in advance but often just jumping on the train and paying will work if they are officially 'sold out'. For preserved steam locomotives in the country check this list.

There is a small private museum in Bangkok, in the park north of the 'Weekend Market', see my report, also several exhibits outside the National Science Exhibition Centre at Ekkemai in Bangkok..

Uzbekistan

See Torsten Schneider's pictures of the Tashkent Railway Museum and a further set from Colin Young (extra picture, 22nd December 2009). For instructions on access, see Colin Martindale's 2009 report (17th December 2009).